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Times of India highlighted the dispute in Kolkata with the following article

published on 20JUN2001. Three days later, ISKCON Mayapur devotees organised

the Kolkata Ratha Yatra after the authorities approved ISKCON's bid and

rejected the ritviks' application. If you are confused by what's going on in

Kolkata, go to Vaishnavake.com for a backgrounder.

 

 

Your servant,

Goloka Candra dasa

 

Fissures in ISKCON movement come out in open

KOLKATA: Hinting a vertical split in the international religious movement

ISKCON, the sect's Kolkata unit on Tuesday came out in open with charges

that a 'fictitious' committee floated by a group from ISKCON's global

headquarters in Mayapur had 'sabotaged' the coveted annual Rath Yatra

(chariot festival) scheduled to be held here on June 23.

 

President of ISKCON, Kolkata, Adridharan Das told a press meet here that the

Rath Yatra, performed uninterrupted for the last 20 years by the Kolkata

temple, had been thrown into disarray as another 'fraudulent management

committee' claiming to represent the temple management had obtained

permission from the city police for holding the festival.

 

"The Calcutta Police was thus duped into giving permission for the festival

to an impostor group that claimed to represent the management of ISCKON,

Kolkata running the temple here," Das alleged.

 

Jagadhartiya Das, secretary to co-director of ISKCON Mayapur, Dayaram Das,

however, claimed that Adridharan Das had been suspended from the post of

Kolkata president by the ISKCON Bureau (IB), the movement's highest legal

authority based in Mumbai, on March 2.

 

"An eight-member committee headed by IB general secretary Gopal Krishna

Goswami has already taken over the presidentship and this committee is in

charge of holding this year's Rath Yatra," he said.

 

City police commissioner Sujoy Chakraborty, when contacted, said that he had

permitted ISKCON to conduct the festival and was not concerned with the

internal bickerings plaguing the movement. "Let them resolve their domestic

dispute themselves," he said. (PTI)